kmkurdone

I don't know if you've read this or not, but here is an article written by Bobby Julich on the Floyd Landis situation. I am interested in how people will interpret this, because the farther and farther I read along, the more it seemed like Julich was hinting at everyone doping. I don't know, maybe I just made that up in my head. Let me know what you think.

(Also, he sounds pretty certain that Landis did do it to me)

https://sports.espn.go.com/oly/tdf200...ory?id=2542410

Chucklehead

yeah, everyone on CSC is clean. julich was a washed-up has-been about to retire before he went to CSC. but simply being in the presence of such a great group of guys rejuvenated him and helped him start winning again.

right?

roadwarrior

More accurately...his career was in the dumper and, like Lazarus, arose after changing to CSC.

DXchulo

I'm not a Bobby J fan at all, and it's hard to believe anyone in cycling these days. He does make some good points in his article, though. It's definitely worth reading, even if you hate the guy.

You have to get a kick out of this quote, though:

No test is ever going to be 100% certain. That's just not how science works. Even if a test could be 100% certain, you'd still have these conspiracy theories about how so-and-so spiked the sample or how the rider was given drugs without his knowledge. Sadly, I doubt this will ever end.

DocRay

Yeah, right.
Riis was a doper. he taught Hamilton how to dope, and now Basso.

Psimet2001 

Now, now, now...I thought Hamilton, Landis, and Heras learned from Lance. They then taught Riis, Saiz, and the Phonak, CSC, and Liberty Seguros squads how to do it....

...I think if we do some detective work we can pin all of this on Laurent Fignon.

CyLowe97

Hmm.... no mention of Basso's implication in the OP scandal doing its little part to cast doubt on grand tour winners...

Gee, Bobby, was Floyd the first one to cast this pall over the validity of results in the peloton?

Get real.

If you have the guts to comment on Floyd's situation and its impact, then give us the rest of the story, too. Basso, Ullrich, Mancebo. Yeah, they didn't test positive, but their involvement in the biggest scandal ever sure did its part in the current environment of doubt.

flythebike

Again, we can see that one's position on doping in the peloton has much more to do with personal cynicism and resignation than anything else. I don't mean that as a personal attack either. In this world none of us are free from it.

Just as Julich's article points out, anybody that has any success the first thing you think: doper. And he is no different - all his results are under suspiscion and with good reason.

I know Bobby Julich is about as well liked and popular as George Bush, but I still admire him for making the most of what was left of his career. He could have, like Kevin Livingstone or Jonathan Vaughters, just quit.

And I've seen him totally make the race at the CSC Invitational in Arlington, do a great attacking ride, the kind everybody loves to see. He initiated a break of four with two sprinters and Ivan Stevic. (the rest of his team was out of contention) After his multiple attack-the-break tries failed, he sat up and let Stevic take third. It was a nice gesture and he was the crowd favorite by a long, long way. You could just feel the love.

merlinextraligh

Julich does have an interesting career pattern. 3rd in the TDF simultaneously with the Festina Affair. Career goes way downhill, then back up on CSC with Ris. A cynical person might think he was doping pre Festina, stopped in the wake of Festina, and then started again with Ris and CSC.

asgelle

Vaughters may have stopped racing professionally, but he hardly left the sport of cycling. He's probably done more in the last two or three years for the sport than you'll do in your lifetime. And since when does a rider owe it to you to keep riding when he feels it's time to move on. Get back to me when you're ready to retire and I'll let you know if you can or not.

asgelle

But an observant person would have taken note of the many riders who were fairly successful before joining Telekom or T-Mobile only to have terrible years with that team before moving on to any of several other teams and showing marked improvement. They would also not assume that T-Mobile is cleaner than any other team given the recent Spanish developments

flythebike

Not sure how personally attacking me has anything to do with this thread.

We were talking about personal acomplishments as related to doping, not general contributions to cycling. Certainly I am well aware of the fine work Vaughters is doing with his TIAA/CREF squad and I wouldn't argue with you about that. Maybe you could just avoid personal attacks when responding to posts, and stay on topic? The fact is that instead of making a second effort at their racing careers, the talented riders Livingstone and Vaughters hung it up, while Julich made a great second effort and pulled off some great results. I don't understand why so many people seem to hate him, and I regard his accomplishments as significant and worthy of praise. Just because he is no Lance Armstrong, doesn't make him a failure, and just because he has had some success doesn't make him a doper.

If you look at the way the Credit Agricole and T-Mobile teams were using Julich, it is understandable why he got no results. They over-raced him and used him as a domestique for their national riders, Moreau in the case of Credit Agricole and Ullrich in the case of T-mobile/Telekom. They didn't have confidence in his ability to generate his own results and wouldn't let him ride for himself. Riis didn't have big stars and needed Julich to build a successful team. He used his powerful coaching ability to re-focus Julich, gave him an opportunity and Julich took it.

By contrast, Vaughters saw his potential elsewhere, and you could compare his 2nd effort to Julich, only he has done it from off the bike. As for me, I write a blog that many people have lauded me for as educational as regards racing tactics, and that is a contribution that I am happy to make, humble as it may be as compared to fielding an international developmental squad.

Psimet2001 

Again...it's all Laurent's fault.

He found the secret performance enhancing quality of his pony tail and sells strands of it to riders.

What the Fignon did you expect??

flythebike

Does this post have anything to do with this thread?

asgelle

I've reread my post several times and I can't find where I might have attacked you personally. The only reference to you is in comparing Vaughters contribution to cycling to your own, and you agree with me that his is greater than yours.

You seem very sensitive to personal attacks for someone who threw in a gratuitous personal attack on two riders who had nothing to do with this discussion. Every year riders retire for numerous personal reasons. I don't think it would be appropriate for us to judge them even if we had all the facts; given that we never do know all the facts makes it even more wrong to judge these people.

prabbit

Both of these sentences seem like personal attacks to me. But maybe it's just me.

thomspins

Bobby J is a stand up guy!!

Psimet2001 

Have you read this thread? Apart from re-reading your own posts that is??

Duke of Kent

Psimet2001: Did you race at Elgin this past weekend?

flythebike

Yes. What does Fignon have to do with Bobby Julich? I mean if you want to explain that would be great, otherwise it makes no sense to me.

flythebike

I didn't make a personal attack. I stated a fact. Livingstone and Vaughters were at a dead end and they hung it up. Julich made a second effort. I choose to respect him for that instead of assuming he is a cheater. Call me a positive thinker.

I couldn't understand why Livingstone quit and I was disappointed in him. But yeah, I don't have any idea what his life was like, the challenges he faced, etc. etc. Having seen Vaughters have the ups and down in Le Tour, I can understand him quiting. I didn't intend to imply any disrespect, only to point out how difficult it was for Julich to refocus and restart and illustrate an example of two promising pros who gave up when faced with similar circumstances. Yet nobody pours the hate on them in this forum and Julich seems to have a lot of haters, and I just don't understand that.

Trying to compare me in an absolute sense to Vaughters is kind of silly, really. I'll tell you one thing, if everybody walked the talk like Vaughers did, cycling would be better off. But he did quit where Julich soldiered on and made something out of nothing. Instead of getting respect Julich gets accusations. That is messed up.

I contribute in the way that I can, and many people have told me I make a difference, and I do what I can. In a relative sense I'd like to think my contribution is comparable, given the amount of power I have. I'd like to think I have the same intentions as Vaughters, to make people into better racers, and raise the total level of bike racing. His street cred is greater than mine on a whole different scale, so it isn't really too reasonable to expect me to found a developmental team. Not that he was reasonable about that either, he is quite the visonary. But really this is beside the point, I brought up on the bike stuff, you changed the topic to off the bike stuff, and then compared me off the bike to Vaughters off the bike. Really does seem personal to me.

If you found my points about Vaughters and Livingstone to be personal attacks, you could just say that without attacking me in turn. I mean I could understand how you could read it that way, so I hope what I have said above provides appropriate clarification. Does it?

asgelle

Again you see personal attacks where none exists. I contradicted your statement that Vaughters quit cycling by referring to his involvement over the last few years and compared that contribution to another cyclist: you. (Only after this did you add the clarification that you were only referring to professional racing.) I did not in any way criticize or comdemn your level of involvement, I merely used it as a point of reference. Then I asked for the right to be able to apply the same standard you used in judging Vaughter's and Livingston's choice of time to retire to you. It seems that if you don't believe you were attacking those two, I could not be attacking you by doing the same thing.

Nevertheless, your point about Julich is perfectly valid (and I don't think I ever diagreed with it). I just think you could have made the point without bringing Livingston or Vaughters into the discussion. What you originally wrote reminded me of the saying "You won't make yourself taller by cutting the other guy's legs off." Whatever merit there is to what Julich did or did not do, should stand on its own merits and not need to be compared to what other unrelated individuals did.

By the way, the time will surely come when Julich stops racing professionally and with luck that day will be by his own choice, will you label him a quiter then?

domestique

Come on..... Laurent Fignon?... Lance got it from Merckx..... Merckx also gave it to Hinault who gave it to Lemond.... Lemond just kept it to himself and instead just likes to accuse others.

flythebike

No, Julich is getting to be a bit old. Vaughters and Livingston retired in their 20s. Calling Julich a quitter would be like calling Eki a quitter, only not quite as extreme. Currently I think he plans to race through the 2008 Olympics.

Neither would I call Bonnen a quitter if he retires in a few years. At 25, he has already had a long and successful career.

Sure, everybody has to know their own limit and when to quit. I would like to have seen Vaughters complete the Tour after all the bad luck he had there.

You have to admit that it is atypical that they retired at a rather young age. Suggesting that pros who retire in their mid 30s are quitters is ridiculous.

lotek 

I thought Riis taught Tyler who taught Floyd who hasn't learned anything.